“First Tier and very powerful,” Lex said as she crossed her arms over her chest.
“Abysmal magic?” Rhonda said.
I frowned. Abysmal what? Was that possible? I looked around for Tim, then realized I’d left the rock in the car.
Crap.
“Wraith,” she said, and my gaze snapped to her. I had no choice in the matter. “Reach inside.”
Uh . . . what?
I shook my head. “That’s gross.”
... alone . . .
I wondered if I was hearing things.
“Do it.”
And I did. Of course . . . I could actually have just made my body incorporeal and slipped my hand in—but I hadn’t shared that little tidbit yet. So I held out my right hand, allowed my astral hand to sieve out. It looked really weird—as my physical hand relaxed away. Kinda like shirking off a flesh glove.
Scrubbing bubble——
ewwwwww.
With a glance at Rhonda, I paused. “Now . . . how come I can stick my hand in there, and she can’t touch the flesh?”
“Oh, just do it, chicken shit,” Rhonda said.
Oh . . . you are so gonna get it.
Lex nodded, and I took a deep breath—
—And plunged my hand into the iciest, murkiest, nastiest gunk I could have imagined. Even before I could yell, I was yanking my hand out, the cold actually burning my astral arm.
“MOTHER GUPPY FUCK AN EGG GOD DAMN—”
Yes! I could cuss out loud again. And I did, waving my now-frozen hand around the tiny room.
“What happened?” Rhonda was saying, her eyes even bigger.
You know . . . if they got bigger than that . . . she’d look like Mr. Magoo.
Lex nodded to the body as I held my physical hand and hissed as I eased my astral one back into it. Ow. Fuck. Damn. Ow. Burns. She then motioned for us to look and tilted the girl’s head to the side.
There . . . blatantly obvious against the white skin . . . were two distinct puncture wounds.
“She was drained of blood and her soul destroyed.”
4
I
tucked my still-stinging right hand under my left arm, and said, “You telling us that a vampire did this?” I gave her my
you’re shitting me
look. “I thought
you
were a vampire.”
Lex nodded. “Yes. I am. But a vampire didn’t kill this woman. Yet it was made to look as if one had.”
Okay. I hadn’t expected an outright admission to being a blood-sucking creature. But there it was. I knew
what
they were because of the Dioscuri—but ever having met one? Other than Lex?
Nope.
Joe reached into his shirt pocket and grabbed his pad and pen. He scribbled. TELL THEM.
I looked at Lex. “Tell us what?”
Lex looked uncomfortable, which was uncomfortable for me too. My hand tingled when I took it out from beneath my arm, but it was better.
She indicated my hand. “What you physically felt inside of this body—the burning ice—was my blood. It was the spark of life that kept the flesh from corrupting.”
Oh. Kay.
“This girl—this woman—was my companion. Mialani. She had been with me for a little over a hundred years—the longest living ghoul in existence.”
Rhonda nodded slowly, as if she got it.
Well, I didn’t. “Okay—lesson here. This woman was a ghoul? Like in a zombie ghoul? Did she have a Symbiont too?”
“No,” Rhonda and Lex said in unison.
Freaky.
Rhonda glanced at Lex and spoke to me. “First Borns—when they join with the souls of their hosts—change the chemistry of the human body. It’s not a fast process—and it takes time. But over the years, the human body changes to adjust to the creature dwelling within it. The blood changes, the organs, the brain, it all shifts into something a bit more than
Homo sapiens
.”
I pursed my lips, then went into full-on boo-boo lip. “Mmmhmmm . . .”
Lex took it up from there. “The word
vampire
does, and does not, fit what we are. I joined with this body over three hundred years ago. It is, for all practical purposes, no longer human. But in order to stay anchored to these bodies—to remain hidden from prying Abysmal eyes—we take a sustenance from the blood of others. Without it, we—the First Borns—would lose control and release the body. The host would die as the physical being tried to return to its natural state.”
That sounded . . . awful.
They were like vampires, and as she said before, not like vampires. “I take it the First Born is the key.”
“Yes,” Lex said. “My First Born—Yamato—is more than a mere parasite to me. She is me, in so many ways. And when she joined with me, she brought with her all the joys, tragedies, and experiences from the previous hosts. Knowledge was mine. Our bodies are like yours, Wraith.” She smiled. “Human . . . but also Abysmal. We—as I said before—are sisters.”
Joe and Rhonda looked at me, and I shrugged.
Help! Stop pointing that out!
“A ghoul,” Lex continued as she put her hand lovingly on the girl’s head and smoothed out her hair. “We can’t make others like ourselves. We live in seclusion away from the Phantasm’s eyes. But we can make a companion—a creature of legend—if we choose. Mialani was beaten in her home village—having bedded a man besides her husband-to-be. She was then stoned. But before she was burned—I came to her and offered her a life with me. I gave her a taste of my blood—and her dying corpse was reanimated and given life. And as long as she drank a single drop from me every month, she remained as beautiful and young as the day she died.”
I realized my mouth was hanging open, so I shut it. “She was literally—the walking dead.”
Lex nodded. “There are drawbacks, of course. If she were to have missed a drink, madness would take her, and she’d have gone on a killing spree to relieve her hunger.” She waved her hand. “But that rarely happens. We’re careful about our ghouls and take care of them. And you would never know you’d met one unless they told you, and you wouldn’t believe them.”
Wait . . . can we go back to that whole madness thing and killing spree for hunger?
Joe pointed to the girl, and Lex nodded. “Someone killed Mialani in the old way. Using a ritual devised by the present Phantasm to annihilate all First Borns within the planes. The draining of blood, the carvings, the spell—it’s all here. Only Mialani wasn’t a First Born and so suffers a fate worse than the death of a First Born.”
“And what’s that?”
Lex looked at me, and I finally saw the sadness locked away behind that Symbiont’s eyes. “Her soul is now seared to the flesh. She cannot move on. She is there—calling out to me every second as her body dies. And she’ll feel it worse than you, Wraith. Even after the flesh melts away, and the organs return to dust, she’ll feel the bones as they decay until piece by piece she’ll become sand, and disappear.”
I knew I shouldn’t have asked.
Rhonda sighed. “Lex—you think someone targeted Mialani purposefully? A message?”
“Yes.” Lex nodded. “There are two other bodies like this one—south on Tara Boulevard. But they were humans, so the souls weren’t touched. They were drained of blood.”
“Is that part of the ritual?”
“Yes and no,” Lex said. “You can drain blood from a body in a thousand ways. This killer is using the bite marks to send a message. Somehow, they have found the old texts about the spells and are using them. I feel they’re incomplete though—or else there would be a First Born body and not that of a ghoul. Draining the body of blood weakens the First Born’s hold, then the symbols are carved in, locking the soul in place. Once the ritual is complete, the First Born is obliterated.”
Something TC had said earlier that morning touched off my question meter, and my left hand shot up.
Okay . . . so we’re back in school?
“Wait . . . I thought Abysmal creatures couldn’t be destroyed. That even if I release them in the physical plane—they simply re-form into the essence of life and reshape again. You’re saying this ritual actually destroys them?”
Lex nodded, her eyes sharpening as she watched me.
I pressed my luck under her scrutiny. “So—if the ritual succeeds, does the First Born become little more than slime?”
“Zoë!” Rhonda barked.
I looked at her. “What? I’m asking a question here—getting answers.”
What are you up to?
Joe’s voice was loud and clear in my head. He’d been so quiet, I’d forgotten he could do that.
Moi?
Nothing.
Zoë—
Shhh.
“Insensitive . . .” Rhonda was saying.
Well, that might be . . . but there was a really weird similarity here between that thing TC fought and what I’d just learned.
TC?
I booted Joe out of my head as painfully as I could and smiled when he nearly dropped his notepad. Served the perv right.
“You can save her, Irin Daughter.”
It was a good beat before I realized she was talking to me. I looked at her—blinked. “Huh?”
“You could release her from the pain.”
“But you just said there was no release,” Rhonda said.
“There is no release that I can give her.” Lex looked directly at me. “But you can.”
I took a step back, my arm tingling from the burning cold. “No . . . I can’t touch that. I can’t release her—she’s buried too deep.”
Please . . .
“But you can—if you do not surrender the flesh.”
I blinked at her. “Surrender the flesh?”
“Your flesh will protect you.”
Now—I kinda got what she was meaning. I just hoped the other two didn’t. As in she was saying I could release her if I didn’t go OOB and used my Wraithiness in the flesh. Which—of course—I had no intention of doing.
Sensing there was a tense moment, Rhonda spoke up. “Lex—the symbols. Can you read them? Do you know if the ritual is complete?”
This seemed to pull big bad vampire girl’s attention away from me, and I half listened as I stared down at Mialani’s face. I strained to hear her—to sense her there. But the truth was if she was buried in that muck—I might never have found her.
When were you going to tell us?
I jumped at Joe’s voice and looked at him. He stood at the body’s feet, his arms crossed, his eyes intense on me. I lowered my gaze.
You read my mind?
No . . . I’ve known Lex a long time. I know what she’s implying.
He paused.
So you can go Wraith now, without going OOB?
I didn’t nod. Didn’t need to.
Well . . . congratulations there, kiddo. Hope you find your new life fulfilling.
And with that he moved out of the room.
Lex and Rhonda stopped talking as he left, and Rhonda looked at me accusingly. “What did you do?”
I was irritable because of no sleep, hungry, angry, and just plain . . . oh, my sugar was just messed up. I moved around the body and out the doors to follow Joe. He wasn’t inside, so I went outside and found him just by the curb, looking up at the sky. It was foggy out—and there were cars starting to fill the parking lot. Employees getting in to work. Seeing a man there with a gun in a shoulder holster meant nothing to these guys.
I stood behind him.
I’m sorry.
He whirled on me then, his eyes flashing.
Sorry? Something this important happens to you, and you don’t share it with us? Why, Zoë? Why? What happened? When did it happen?
I held up my arms. “I don’t know—well, yeah, I kinda do. It happened the first time that day at the warehouse with Holmes. When Daniel saw me. I—I actually released Holmes with a touch—without slipping the meat suit. And then I got so scared and things got so crazy and you disappeared and Daniel disappeared, then I got sick and couldn’t OOB . . .” I let my voice trail off—not really sure what else to say.
Joe came to me then, a daunting man with broad shoulders and a musky, manly smell that I always liked. He smiled down at me, and I wished I could hear his voice again. He reached out and took my chin in his hand.
I told you why I left. When I kissed you—I knew it meant more to me than it would mean to you. Your heart was Daniel’s. And I needed space. And time.
I looked up into his eyes. He really was a nice-looking man. Even with the smirk.
But how did I tell him . . . this close to me . . . that sometimes . . . in my dreams . . . I wished he would kiss me again?
Oh, that was easy. I didn’t.
I couldn’t.
It wasn’t fair. And it wasn’t real.
“Hey, what’re you two doing?”
Joe and I jumped at the sound of Rhonda’s voice. And I knew he was feeling as guilty as I was—though nothing had happened between us. He was dating Rhonda. And that was okay. Even though I knew where Rhonda’s heart really was.
And so did Joe.
Shit . . . when did this turn into
Days of the Scooby Gang’s Lives
? Or
As the Scooby Gang Turns
? Or even
One Wraith to Live
.
Bah.
I turned to her. Lex wasn’t with her. “Us? Nothing. Did you find out anything else helpful from dark and spooky in there?”
She’s really a nice lady, Zoë.
I glanced at him. “Uh-huh. She tasted your vintage, Joe? She’s a First Born, and no matter how fancy you dress that up, it’s still a Symbiont, isn’t it? Well, we’ve had our run-ins with those, haven’t we? Not to be trusted.”
Oho! And where was this self-righteous lying indignation coming from? My conscience did a double snap and put its hands on its hips.
Girl? Who you been hopping around with lately? The tooth fairy?
Rhonda approached us, passing me to stand close to Joe. They kissed. I seethed.
Welcome to real life.
“Zoë, I don’t think I’d use the term
Symbiont
with the First Borns. They’re different, stronger, older. Now, on what’s happening, from what Lex knows, the symbols aren’t complete. They should be carved over all of the flesh—face included. It’s her guess and mine that whoever is doing this doesn’t have all the pieces—might not have all the ritual.”